In a country where land ownership has long been a symbol of security and prosperity, yet remains out of reach for many, Alvi Sakib and Ayaz Hossain aim to rewrite the rules. Their company, Jomee Jomaa, a fractional real estate investment platform, aims to make land investment accessible to everyday Bangladeshis through fractional ownership.
Think of it as buying shares in prime land, but with a crucial difference: this isn't just paper wealth. Every plot is carefully vetted, legally secured, and managed with the same rigor you'd expect from traditional real estate investments. But instead of needing millions of taka upfront, investors can start with a fraction of that amount. Moreover, the platform allows you to sell your units whenever you want to. You can call this the ultimate securitization of land.
In this interview with Alvi and Ayaz, we discuss the genesis of the company, how the platform works, the challenges they faced in developing a trusted platform, and their future vision for Jomee Jomaa. You'll learn:
Whether you're an investor curious about new opportunities, an entrepreneur looking for inspiration, or simply interested in how technology is reshaping traditional markets, this conversation offers a fascinating glimpse into the future of real estate investment in Bangladesh.
We also dive deep into the personal journeys of Alvi and Ayaz, their favorite books, and lessons learned from the journey that will resonate with anyone building something new in a challenging market.
Ruhul Kader: We can start by talking about the background of both of you. Tell us about your journey to what you're doing today and how you have come to start Jomee Jomaa. I think that would be a good background for people.
Alvi Sakib: I've been working on the business side of the tech world at the intersection of product management and market growth for almost 10 years now, starting in 2015. I realized I enjoy this part: being able to first spot a problem and then solve it using technology.
When I thought about what I wanted to do particularly on the Bangladesh side of things, I realized Bangladesh's problems are very real and are experienced by real people day to day. In contrast, in the US, because of market saturation, many of the big societal problems have already been somewhat tackled. Most opportunities there are incremental in nature, such as how to make certain technologies cost a little less, or how to improve developer experiences, and other incremental problems. Compared to that, the solution to important problems in Bangladesh is disruptive and immediately makes the lives of our people significantly better.
Given my domain experiences in land and how people struggle with buying and selling land and investing in land in general in Bangladesh, I saw a scope to solve that problem and make it accessible to everyone. I've done tech, I understand, and have invested in Bangladeshi land, and we have been doing it for generations. So I thought about how I could merge these two specific skill sets, knowledge, and understandings to create something that can help a lot of people in Bangladesh. That's my background and how I have ended up here.
Ayaz Hossain: I've been working as a software engineer ever since my graduation. I've worked at a few startups, but for the last five years, I've consistently worked at a Netherlands-based firm, building and maintaining an equity crowdfunding platform.
I led a small team in building it from scratch, looking after maintaining and adding features to it. I found the experience extremely fulfilling, and I wanted to do something similar in the Bangladesh market but never found an opportunity.
Then I had a conversation with Alvi. He was talking about his idea, like what he just told you about his experience. He shared the idea and said he sees a lot of scope. I thought, "Yes, true." And that's how we started working together. I've looked after the tech side of things at Jomee Jomaa ever since.
Alvi: My first sale was to Ayaz. When he was convinced, I thought we might be able to convince investors as well.
Ruhul: When did you first have your conversation and what was that conversation like? Can you talk about that?
Alvi: We started having this conversation in 2023. Very soon after that, we decided to start building an MVP to test out the waters. We started working on it in May 2023.
Ruhul: Once you agreed to pursue the opportunity, how did you get started?
Alvi: Ayaz understands the tech requirements of a platform like this. It's a sophisticated problem—having to fractionalize an asset and then keep a record of that asset for a long time. If you're a long-term investor, you will be buying and selling units of land over a period of time. It can be years. You have to maintain that record. Because it's a financial product and has a lot of regulatory requirements, we had to be careful about our cybersecurity exposure. We thought about all these things.
Ayaz has already done this for five years for a Netherlands-based company. He was confident about the fact that he'd be able to build it tech-wise.
For me, I have done the business side of tech for almost a decade now. And real estate investing runs pretty deeply in my family. We have been doing it for the past three generations. Both my grandparents were investors of land. That's how my grandparents of both sides—paternal and maternal—met. That’s how my parents met and got married as well. Since we have been doing this for so long, we understand the inherent challenges of this sector. We can anticipate the problems when investing, choosing, or acquiring land and understand how to prevent these problems.
This is one of the competitive advantages we have as founders—why we are the right person to start the company. Since we have this understanding and knowledge, this is something we can democratize and offer to other people who can benefit from investing in land.
Land investing is complex. If you are a first-time investor, it can be overwhelming because the land acquisition/buy-sell paperwork is cumbersome in Bangladesh. The paperwork requirement is heavy and navigating the whole process can be a challenging task for novice investors.
When Jomee Jomaa solves that part of the problem for users, I think that's a big value proposition for most people.
Ruhul: Going back to the early days, you started by discussing the idea, and then decided to build an MVP and launch it in the market. Talk about how you put together the initial resources and the challenges you had to overcome in the early days.
Alvi: When I came up with the idea, the first thing I knew was I needed someone reliable to build the technology because it's a fintech, and fintech products have many nuances. When Ayaz agreed to come on board, one of the big roadblocks got unlocked. Now I had someone who knew end-to-end how to build this technology.
At that time I was living in Chicago, US. There I met this other Bangladeshi Tahsin Haidar. He had recently graduated with a master's in product design and was teaching design at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. When I shared the idea with him, he said, "I would love to design the interaction/UI/UX associated with building this technology." So we had a three-person team and we started working on it. Very soon we also hired another designer to work closely with Tahsin bhai.
We focused a lot on design from the early days because one of our key value propositions is that it should be easy for users to invest. You could invest in land today but it is not easy and accessible. We wanted to change that. We wanted to make the technology so easy that it's as simple as ordering your food on foodpanda. To simplify a complicated process like investing in land, we had to keep designing simple products in mind from the early days. So with this four-person team, we started working on the first version of the product.
On the resource side, I invested some of my savings into it in the early days.
Ayaz and I are school friends. We went to the same school. We also had a common school friend who became a lawyer, who helped us set up the company and the legal framework structures in Bangladesh. That's kind of how it began.
Ruhul: What was the response from the market to your MVP?
Alvi: Before launching the MVP, we launched a coming soon page with a survey and a call to join the waitlist. Within a week, we had more than 100 signups on the waitlist without much marketing. The level of interest gave us an understanding that there was a demand.
We had around 155/160 signups by the end of the second week. From there, we sampled around 10 to 15 users to deep dive with focus groups. We created 3-5 focus groups with 5-6 people in each and started speaking to them about what they would be looking for in a solution like this and making sure those are incorporated in the early MVP. When we finally launched the MVP, many users from our waitlist eventually converted into paid users.
We have also learned that it takes time to build trust in the market. Convincing people that investing in land is a good idea and very high return-generating investment was not difficult. That was/is common knowledge because the history of investing in land has been largely very profitable for most people in Bangladesh.
The initial friction came from a lack of trust in the market. People were skeptical of digital platforms. Because of that, I feel that it's important to be as transparent as you can in the initial days. For us, that meant we had to be transparent about our land purchasing details, about prices, how prices move, how Jomee Jomaa makes money, and other important aspects of our operations. And we have been transparent about these things from day one. Over time, we have seen our growth has been almost a little over 100% month on month.
It wasn't a day-one success when we launched and a lot of users rushed to the platform. However, the steady and high level of growth has been a constant for us since the beginning.
Ruhul: Although investment in land is a profitable investment and there's nothing to establish, it is already established in the market, but investing fractionally in land is something new for people.
Alvi: To trust a company like Jomee Jomaa who doesn't have a lot of history in operating in Bangladesh is not an easy thing to ask from people. We are fairly new. We officially launched in September and started allowing users to invest in land in December 2023. We are less than a year old.
In the early days, the questions were "Hey, is this going to last long enough?" Now that we are like ten months in, a lot of the users who have been following us are growing that confidence to take money out of their pockets and invest. That thing has only started picking up for us.
That's why I say while it hasn't been a stellar success on day one, our growth has picked up and been a little over 100% month over month in recent months. That's a good growth rate, which tells us that we're on the right track and are building a product that people want.
Ruhul: You had to solve that problem of trust in the market with a new investment product. Communicating transparently with your users about how things are being done internally might have helped. Apart from that, what has contributed to achieving this growth?
Ayaz: Transparency has been the most important part. Although people understand that investing in land gives you high returns, many don’t understand our business model, how we actually operate, etc. When more people have come to understand how we work, which is not always very clear to everyone from the starting point, that has helped a lot in gaining trust.
Alvi: I will add two other things to what Ayaz has just said. Transparency of course has been very helpful but I would say customer support has been one of our big selling points. Just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, when a user reaches out to us via WhatsApp or other social media channels like messengers or even a comment on one of our posts, they get a response from us typically within 24 hours. Many users tell me that “when I emailed you and you got back within eight hours, that tells us that you are responsive and you're customer-oriented.”
When people see that Jomee Jomaa cares about users and answers the questions that users have, provides the right documentation and that Jomee Jomaa has legally acquired the land and that Jomee Jomaa is a legit company and has an RJSC registration approval, a legit trade license, these things have helped in terms of establishing credibility.
Lastly, we have been very out in the market. From the early days, I have done at least one monthly live session with our users where they can ask me anything about Jomee Jomaa and investing. When we decide on our tech roadmap, a large portion of it comes from user requests. When we speak with customers directly, they feel that they are talking to a person as opposed to a bot that sends a reply.
All of it together helped us create a community of users who feel that we are all in this together. With time that works as a compounding factor in growing trust. Users feel that we are consistently delivering what they are asking for and are being super communicative.
It's not one particular factor but everything comes together to create that sense of trust or credibility in the Jomee Jomaa brand.
Ruhul: Ayaz bhai mentioned this interesting aspect that while it's straightforward that investing in land is highly profitable, for Jomee Jomaa, the challenge is that it's not easy for people to understand how fractional land investing and the Jomee Jomaa business model work. How do you introduce Jomee Jomaa to people who are not familiar with your work?
Alvi: Soon after launching Jomee Jomaa, we realized that investing isn't taught in the Bangladeshi curriculum. Culturally, we don't talk a lot about investing with our friends and family. There is a lack of understanding of how most investments work, not just land but also stocks, mutual funds, and other things. People generally don't understand how investments work or the compounding return effect.
Once we found this out, we tested a few ways to educate our users about how Jomee Jomaa works, and how investments work in general. After some experiments, we have found that videos work really well. So we have been investing in educating people through video content, frequently asked questions, live sessions etc. We have been talking about how investments work, savings work, etc.
Many users ask us if I'm investing BDT 1000 or BDT 2000, what could I do with that amount? This is such a small amount. We tell them, we are not asking you to invest a thousand taka, we suggest you keep investing a thousand every month and see the compound effect of that five years down the line. And if you can afford more, invest more.
For us, an important fact is the level of return. Let's say someone has been investing BDT 10,000 every month, what would they get after five years versus if they keep it in a bank? When we break it down, we try to do it in simple words so that even the most novice or the most early stage of getting curious about investing type people or even students can understand. Initially, we were doing it in English. We are now trying to do it in both English and Bangla.
All these initiatives have slowly created a sense of community where people not just only come to us to understand Jomee Jomaa but also to understand investing in general.
Ruhul: As you mentioned, there is a lack of understanding about how investing works in the market. Also, I think there are not many good investment options for general people. There is the stock market, which is not that lucrative. This offers an opportunity for platforms like Jomee Jomaa. If you can ensure meaningful returns, people are willing to invest. Moreover, there is now a growing middle class who has disposable income and wants to explore investment options.
Alvi: Part of the value proposition that we provide is partly rooted in what you just mentioned. I lived in the US and the US is such a big country that there's no shortage of land. Land value doesn't go up at this rate. But equity markets are very stable and very mature. Investing in stocks or in mutual funds gives you a stable return that easily beats inflation by a mile.
Whereas Bangladesh's stock market is not that mature. We are a fairly new country. We have only been around for a little over 50 years. The stock market also came later. So if you see our large-cap stocks, their stability is not that high. All in all, the stock market hasn't been able to give us the confidence that the average investor would require to invest their life savings into that market.
However, while our stocks are not mature in Bangladesh, our land is very mature. For the last more than 50 years that we have been independent, land value has grown consistently and exponentially.
Our idea was if we can turn a company into shares, why can't we turn a piece of land into shares? It's very similar. Land value is also growing over time just like a company. Like a company, why can't people just buy shares of the land? That is where everything grew from. What you just mentioned worked for us in that economics-wise, land has been one of the asset classes that makes the most sense for any investor.
Ruhul: Securitization of land or tokenization of land is the whole idea of Jomee Jomaa. That is the crux of your business model. Can you expand on your business model, what are the different parts of it, how do you make money, and how customers/investors are going to make money?
Alvi: If you look into the history of buying and selling land, this model isn't that new. The way people have been historically is by teaming together with people they know and jointly buying land. We team up with friends and colleagues or find like-minded people and then pool money together to buy a piece of land. The typical exit model for these people is to build something on it and then either sell it, rent it out, or do both. This is how people have been, I would say, fractionally investing in land. But these fractions had to be large because you don't have thousands and thousands of like-minded friends. Moreover, you can't break it down to minuscule levels because it can become a management nightmare.
There are two problems in this model. First, you have to find friends, colleagues, and family who are looking to invest in land and then manage all of the paperwork, the barriers to entry I was talking about earlier. You have to understand investing in land and have the expertise to conduct the due diligence to make sure that this investment is safe. Lastly, when you invest with a few friends and a dispute arises, it can affect your friendship.
Where we come in is, let's for example say, we can break a land down into 50,000 units. It's similar to saying I can't buy it with some 5 crore taka but if as many as 50,000 of us can come together and pay each BDT 1000, we can buy this piece of land. People who can afford more can pay more and people who don't earn as much can pay whatever they can. We are now catering to all sorts of people from all sorts of economic backgrounds. This is one of the things that we have introduced that you don't all have to pay in equal shares.
Secondly, we have been able to fractionalize this to a point that makes it super affordable. Before, there was no technology. It was hard for people to manage if you have too many units. For instance, managing 50,000 units is hard. However, when you have a platform like Jomee Jomaa that says we are going to buy the land, ensure that we hold it for a fixed period i.e. 5 years, and when the maturity time hits, we are going to sell this land at the market price. We are doing all these things.
What you do is essentially what you do in the stock market. You buy units of land, hold it, and then sell it. For you, it's just using our app to create an account, sign up, and then put whatever amount of money you want to put in. And you can also do this monthly. So using technology, it just makes it seamless. Through this tokenization, we can fractionalize this to small units where each unit only costs a thousand taka.
And how does Jomee Jomaa make money from this? We take 20% of the profits that users earn. For instance, we buy the land for 5 crore taka, and after 3 to 5 years we sell it for 10 crore taka, which means we made a 5 crore taka profit over that period of time. We keep 20% of that profit and the rest we distribute among all of the shareholders based on how many shares they own.
In the second part, users can sell this unit among themselves. Let's say you are a user of Jomee Jomaa and Ayaz is also a user of Jomee Jomaa. Ayaz wants to sell 10 units of his land and the maturity period is still let's say a few years away. He can list those units up for sale and you can buy them from him at the current market price.
For every land, we have a team of real estate agents who evaluate the land every three months. Because of this, we can give you a pretty accurate estimate of what the current value of the land is. For example, when we launched, our price was BDT 1000/unit, if you look now, the units are priced at BDT 1080. That is because we acquired the plot at BDT 4 crore 80 lakh taka and the current price of that same plot is 5 crore 18 lakh. The price of the land has increased and so does the price of each unit's price. Now if someone wants to sell it to another user, they can sell it at an 80 taka profit per unit, which also allows you to keep that money liquid.
One problem of buying land even if you could let's say afford a 5 crore taka land is that it is not immediately liquid. If you want to immediately sell it to someone, you have to find a buyer who can afford that land. The new buyer has to do all the due diligence and everything associated with buying that piece of land.
With us, you don't even need to sell all of your units. You can list 1000 units on the secondary market and sell it relatively quickly because now you don't need one buyer. A lot of buyers can come together to buy these units from you. So it gives you the required liquidity which has been missing from the land market for a long time because technology was not present.
Lastly, let's say you want to sell a thousand units but you want to sell it today. We also have a feature which allows you to give users a little bit of a discount. If the current market price is 1080, you can list at 1075, giving a five taka discount per unit to users.
Instead of making 80 taka profit per unit, you're making 75 taka profit. You are not losing out on much but for the buyer, they're getting a good discount on acquisition. It is an instant return on investment because he/she is buying something for 1075, which is valued at 1080. This incentivizes people. We see that when users give a discount on the secondary market, their units get sold in less than a day.
We have been able to create a marketplace that makes land liquid, which is a big value add for users who have historically invested in land. Many people think that this is an illiquid fixed asset. If I need emergency funds, unlike the stock market, I can't sell my assets. With an immediate selling feature, we have been able to add value and popularize as well.
Ruhul: Do you also make money when someone sells their units before maturity?
Alvi: Yeah. When they sell it on the secondary market, if they're making a profit, we take 20% of that profit.
Our equation is clear. Every single time you make a profit, we take 20% of the profit. But if you're not selling at a profit, if users don't make a profit, we don't profit either. We don’t charge a fee for selling, it's a profit share model. Jomee Jomaa shares 20% of the profits regardless of how the user and when the user is making it and users take 80% of the profit. And that has also been a big attraction for a lot of users that we don't take any money upfront. We only make money when our users have made a profit, when they have made some money.
Unlike the stock market which charges a commission on every trade. Even if you lose on the market, your brokers are making money off of you.
Ruhul: What are the risks for the users? In the stock market, there are always fluctuations and it's partly speculation that the company is going to make more money in the future so shares are going to go up and that kind of thing. Land is rather, I would say, an unproductive asset in a sense. Of course, land prices go up every year but when you hold it, is there a risk of price going down for some reason and if that happens, what happens to your investors?
Alvi: Generally when someone asks me that question, I tell them that it completely depends on where and how you're buying land. If you don't do the right due diligence, if you are someone who's a new investor in the market and not taking the right steps, you can sometimes buy the wrong sorts of assets or buy them at an unreasonable price.
Let's say I'm selling a submerged land plot to you for BDT 10 crore, which perhaps should not be valued at more than BDT 1 crore. When you eventually go to sell it, you can't get a similar price.
Jomee Jomaa is essentially trying to fill that gap by providing the expertise. We're saying we are going to be the platform that brings the experts together to be able to make these decisions on behalf of the users and we'll also be the go-to platform that users can trust.
We want to keep it as transparent and clear—this is the land, we are buying it, and everyone else is seeing this as well. When we are doing it openly, people can see what we are valuing. If we overprice some land, people will raise flags. There are community groups we have on social media. People would say what is Jomee Jomaa doing? Why are they selling this for this much while it should be much less? So people can raise questions because we are a public platform. We can't just get away with saying some absurd price for the land. But if you go to a single broker and you don't know anything about it, they can take advantage of your lack of knowledge.
At Jomee Jomaa, we can build a certain level of trust in the system because it's a lot of people investing together and they can talk amongst each other. Even some of the experts in the group can give others assurance that I know this area and the going rate in this area is this. This is one thing.
Now going back to the point of risk factors of price going down. In the case of Bangladesh, the risk factors are pretty low if you're buying the right land as I was referring to earlier. Because in Bangladesh, the population increase rate is significantly higher than new land being available. The population is increasing in the country and disposable income is growing. Now we need more factories, more markets, more hotels, and all of these infrastructures. When the supply is limited and the demand is ever-increasing, the only way the price can go is up. If we talk about basic economics, lack of supply, and high demand keep the price exponentially increasing year-over-year. That's why land is the highest-performing asset class as opposed to when you talk about stocks.
Stock prices go up and down and that makes sense. If a company does well, its price will increase but if a competitor does better, its price will decrease. If a company is not run efficiently, its stock value will go down. There are so many different things that can cause a company's value to go down versus land value for which the chances of such fluctuations are usually low.
Having said that, there's always a small chance of natural calamities. For instance, in the case of a flood when a large part of the city goes underwater, your land falls in that part of the city and it goes underwater, the price of that land can go down significantly. This is something to consider.
The second scenario is we might go into a state of war. In that situation, land prices will certainly go down. Similar unexpected major events can cause land prices to go down. But largely, at least in the history of Bangladesh, it hasn't been very prevalent.
Ruhul: Now that's a very interesting point that you mentioned about the community sort of regulating the platform. You can't ask for absurd pricing because it's an open platform and people can come in and talk about how the pricing is not right. We can extend that to the question of regulation and investor safety on the platform. You started with trust being one of the most important questions when people are investing, particularly on digital platforms. There are now several companies like Jomee Jomaa that offer alternative investment products, that are not essentially regulated under any particular regulatory framework. Does that create legal and investor safety challenges? How do you answer that question?
Alvi: Every new product or new idea that has come into the market has come in where no regulations previously existed. Even in established markets like the US, UK, where Uber, and Airbnb, and similar type innovative products came up, there was no regulation for these companies. They were able to find a pain point and solve a problem for users, and users started using their products. When the government saw that there was a large demand from their citizens for products like this, they created regulations for short-term renting for Airbnb, ride-sharing for Uber, and all of the other companies.
When Amazon and eBay were not there, e-commerce regulation was not there, and so on. Similarly, in Bangladesh, before Pathao, there was no ride-sharing regulation. No e-commerce policy before Daraz.
We have been able to identify, and all of these other companies such as iFarmer, Biniyog.io, and some of the other platforms like this are identifying a segment that creates value for their users and then have started doing it. All these can be put under the umbrella of crowd investing or crowdfunding for which, as you mentioned, there are no clear regulations and guidelines.
However, that doesn't mean demand is not there. That doesn't mean users are not asking for something like this. Lastly, that also doesn't mean that it's illegal. Unlike, let's say, cryptocurrency, the government did not tell us what we're doing we cannot do. This time is for us to be able to build a solution and gain market share where it tells the government this is the right time for us to introduce a guideline. If companies like us don't build products and show the government there's a demand for them, the government will never create a regulation for this because they have other bigger things to focus on.
Some of us have talked to government organizations like Bangladesh Bank, and BIDA, and all of them told us the same thing, which is as you grow we see that there is a clear indication in the market that products like this are in demand, then it makes sense for us to focus on issuing or working on providing guidelines for companies like this.
Largely, around the world companies like ours have been solving problems and providing innovative solutions, as long as the users are getting value from solutions like this, regulations have always come after these have become popular solutions in the market. So that never has stopped users from using solutions before guidelines have come around.
Ruhul: And during this interim period, how do you assure users that your risks are taken care of? These are the guarantees that your investments are not going to go away.
Alvi: Just like any other platform, we provide users with documentation, ownership certification, and legal paperwork that is signed between us and the user that includes details about the deal, such as the amount of money and the right to share in a particular property, etc.
Let's say if Jomee Jomaa, of course, we would never do it, or company X or any other company doing this were to associate in activities of fraud, any user would have the right to take us to court or file cases against us or take legal actions against us because we are all covered under the laws of Bangladesh or laws that prevent companies from conducting any fraudulent activities with their customers.
As I mentioned, we are registered under RJSC. So RJSC is regulating us as a company. We have a trade license that allows us to do certain things within the framework, and because we are a Bangladesh-registered company, all laws associated with Bangladeshi businesses apply to us as well. I think that's the certainty that all of the companies like ours who are providing alternative solutions, as long as they are operating under Bangladesh laws, are providing that as the security for users that like any other company, if I am cheated or I feel like some sort of fraud has happened with me, I can take these companies to court.
Ruhul: Coming back to the operations of Jomee Jomaa, tell us about the scale of the company today. Give us an overview of the solutions that you're offering to the customers, how many users you have, and if you want to share any other metrics like revenue or any other similar metrics to give a sense of the scale of the company.
Alvi: As I was telling you, we are fairly new. We have been operating for only about eight months now. Having said that, we have more than 500 users and our assets under management are above BDT 5 crore.
I would say we're doing relatively pretty well, and one of the most interesting factors that are working for us is how the growth rate month over month is, as I was telling you, 100%.
We're still a fairly early-stage company but growing pretty fast. So let's say a year from now, these numbers will look a lot bigger than what they are currently.
Ruhul: Another question that comes up is that in a sense you are an asset management company.
Alvi: Yeah, one particular asset manager. Actually, we are not an asset management company. I would say we are a tech service providing company. Asset management is a small part of what we do, which is manage the land, but what we provide value on is adding the tech to make investing in land easy and affordable.
Unlike an asset management company, which provides mutual funds, they're managing your money for you, putting it in different assets, and generating returns, we don't do that. We let users choose which land they want to invest in, and how many units they want to buy. We don't provide any sort of asset management advice that asset management companies do. What we just do is make it easy for them to be able to take an action that they want to take themselves. We are not financial advisors. We are a fintech company that makes it easy to invest in land.
Ruhul: From that perspective, do you think you become a marketplace for land investing? Will you allow other people to list their lands going forward?
Alvi: I think that is going to be the future of Jomee Jomaa, where the seal of verification from Jomee Jomaa becomes a big selling value for people who are trying to sell their assets. They would come to Jomee Jomaa and want to get that verification done where we look into their paperwork and give them the approval that we have looked into all of the paperwork and this land looks solid. The buyer can ask for Jomee Jomaa's approval. That is a product that we would want to venture out as we mature as a company.
Ruhul: That also makes you sort of an expert in terms of how to handle land properties.
Alvi: I would like to claim the expertise of how to handle buy-sell already exists with us. What that allows us to do is become the trusted source for buyers. Customers think when they see Jomee Jomaa's approval that “I know Jomee Jomaa knows what they're doing, and the fact that they have given you the seal of approval and listed your land on their platform means that they have done the due diligence. This gives me the confidence of buying this piece of asset that I'm acquiring without having to be in fear of if this land is actually legit or not or if their paperwork is legit or not.”
Ruhul: If you venture out into becoming a marketplace for lands, will that change your business model? Your current model is more like asset management where asset management companies charge fees on the investors—2%/5%/10%, you do the same thing for your investors. If you allow the marketplace model, will that change the model?
Alvi: Our business model looks similar to what you mentioned. A lot of asset management companies follow similar business models and the way of making money is similar. However, little nuances exist. They charge based on how much you're investing with them versus charging only when you make profits.
Regardless of that, once we become a marketplace, our revenue model becomes a little different, or I would say it becomes diverse. When we are allowing people to invest in fractional units of land, the business model stays the same. But when people list their lands on Jomee Jomaa, they'll pay us a service fee similar to a legal chamber that does legal work for you. They verify things and then they give you a certificate that I have done this due diligence and I can say that these papers are all legit. We may charge a service fee like that when we're working it like a marketplace.
Ruhul: I think you could all kinds of interesting directions as the platform matures. Coming back to the overview question, can you talk about the operations of the company? How big is the team? How is the team structured? What are some of the key operational pillars, and also a bit about the culture of the organization?
Alvi: Right now we are a small but mighty team of 11 full-time employees. We also have an extensive network of real estate agents, 30 plus, who bring us the right kind of deals that we want to build the pipeline on. Land plots that will be listed in Jomee Jomaa are determined by these expert real estate agents who work with us. They are not full-time employees. They work on a commission basis. You can think of it like full-time employees of Pathao versus Pathao riders who are working on a contract basis.
Culture-wise, our corporate culture is open and transparent. One of the things I particularly enjoy is when someone who's right out of college joins Jomee Jomaa, who's the youngest member of the team, he can come and challenge me.
In our culture, there is an expectation of being yes-men. I think the older generation has previously rewarded yes-men around them. I think our generation and startups value more of having an individual opinion and being able to say that okay, I don't agree with what others are saying in the room.
When you create a culture where everyone knows that they have a voice and everyone will be appreciative of that, It unlocks all sorts of motivations and creativity.
That is an integral part of Jomee Jomaa's culture—being able to collaborate with people and knowing your opinions are going to be valued. You are not going to be shut down. Your pedigree or level of seniority in the organization doesn't matter at the end of the day. It's relatively very flat when it comes to day-to-day working.
Ruhul: What are the challenges of running a platform like Jomee Jomaa at this stage, as you scale the platform, as you said, growth is now 100% month on month, if you continue growing at that rate, what kind of challenges do you foresee?
Alvi: I think challenges-wise, it's similar to a lot of other startups in the country, which is that startups don't have unlimited resources; rather, they are resource-constrained. Educating your user base because investing isn't a large part of our cultural education or even our formal education in schools and colleges in an efficient manner is a challenge.
I've spoken to people with BBAs and MBAs in finance who don't really have a lot of understanding of how investments work. Using the resources that we have to make sure we are educating our users in a way that is effective and efficient.
Number two is also making sure we are doing the activities that allow people to trust us, not just trust us in a gradual way but in an exponential way.
What I mean by that is, let's say five years down the line a lot of people will trust Jomee Jomaa a lot more than they do today, but how can I make sure that that level of trust is generated in five months as opposed to five years? What are the activities we need to do? What are the sorts of companies we need to collaborate with? What are the sorts of key market actions we need to take to make that happen? These are the challenges for us.
As we scale as a company, I'll just add that making sure that we hire the right people with the right mindset allows us to preserve our culture because, as I was telling you, with an 11-person team, maintaining culture is easy, but when it becomes a 50-person team, maintaining that same level of transparency across the team and having that sense of freedom to speak your mind is something that will be a challenge as we scale.
Ruhul: Can you talk about the industry that you're operating in, which is partly real estate and partly technology, and partly investment? It's a kind of intersection of three different industries. Talk about where you see the industry going down the line in five/six years, and also a bit about the dynamics of the industry in terms of competitors, in terms of other players. Who do you perceive as a competitor, if not a direct competitor, but they play in some aspects of your business?
Alvi: Firstly, I'll start by saying that it is exciting for us to be at the intersection of different industries because if you look into recent history, most successful companies or startups nowadays play in different industries. Like, think about Uber or Pathao. They're in the taxi industry, like the transport industry, as well as the tech industry. Let's talk about Airbnb. They're in the hospitality industry, a hotels-like industry, but also a tech company.
We are somewhat of a real estate company as well as a technology company as well as an investment company. We have one more intersection to play with. That also allows us to solve a problem that requires multifaceted knowledge and understanding. The value that we can derive is then multiplied because you can have someone who's a real estate expert, an investment expert, and a tech expert as well. We solve problems that require different expertise or different sorts of skills. Being able to assemble a team that has all of those skills provides a lot of value for our users.
To follow up on what you were saying about where this place us, I would particularly say that this segment is only going to keep growing where people will need kind of a generalist mindset or need to assemble teams with different levels of expertise in different fields to be able to rightfully solve a problem that needs to be solved.
In terms of competitors, I would say our biggest competitors are bank accounts. A lot of people keep their money in the bank, and bank accounts give them a very small interest rate. That interest is not even enough to beat inflation since the inflation rate is rather pretty high. As more people start realizing how bank accounts are not doing them a service or not helping them preserve the value of their money, and more people get aware of why active investments or investments that beat the inflation rate are important to first be identified and then also popularized in the country, I feel we will have an upper edge over our biggest competitors, as I was saying, which were just general bank deposit products.
However, some of our direct competitors probably are not there in the land fractionalization or fractional land investing market. Again, we are competing for people's savings. We're competing for every taka that you save. Market share-wise, the biggest share is being held by bank accounts, but also other asset management firms, I'd say, can all be put in the same bucket if we are all competing for the same extra taka that people save at the end of the month.
Ruhul: That's really interesting and we could talk more about that. However, today I would not go into that discussion of playing at that intersection of tech, investment, and real estate. However, I think it is interesting and a question to figure out is about efficiency. Of course, there are lots of upsides, as you mentioned, for companies like Uber, Pathao, and others. There are lots of upsides when you operate at the intersection, but also does that bring in additional downsides in terms of costs because now you're operating in two different industries, competing in two different industries? That's also something I think a lot of companies are having to figure out.
Alvi: In general, technology really helps you be efficient. So if you're using the power of technology in the right way, being in the intersection of adding technology or being in the tech industry actually is supposed to give you some sort of efficiency advantages.
Now, are a lot of companies being able to do that? I can't speak to that as of yet, but at least in terms of Jomee Jomaa's perspective, for us to be able to derive the sort of value that we want to derive for our users and we are providing to our users, we have to be experts in technology, especially fintech. That's a big part of what we have to be.
Ruhul: Tell us about your short-term priorities and the long-term vision. What do you plan to do in two-three years in the short run and 10-15 years in the long run?
Alvi: As I was telling you, for startups like us, plans are always changing, things are always coming. I don't really know what 15 years down the line Jomee Jomaa will look like. However, some of the things that we have been thinking about is what you just mentioned: do you want to be a marketplace for real estate? Yes, essentially we want to be a one-stop shop for all things real estate and maybe down the line for all things investment in Bangladesh. So those are the kind of avenues or future steps that we want to take.
Ruhul: Talk about what's your sentiment about the overall startup ecosystem in the country. We're going through a major political change at the moment, and also globally, there are economic uncertainties and wars and all these things, and investment in startups has been on a downward trend for a while. How do you see all these things and how do they affect your work at Jomee Jomaa?
Alvi: Startup investing-wise, globally, investors have started investing less. That definitely is a challenge. But these are seasonal. I mean, investment levels keep going up and down over time. So nothing new. But difficult times don’t affect the kind of companies coming out. Let's talk about Airbnb; they came out right out of the 2007 housing market or financial crisis in the US.
A lot of startups succeed or thrive in down markets or down investment markets like this because they learn how to operate efficiently and use the little capital that they get. And once you learn how to operate efficiently, you become indomitable when the investment landscape changes towards the positive after a few years. You are efficient and you have the cash to now grow. The chances of a lot of companies which are starting right now succeeding is actually higher. It is easy to operate if you are given unlimited cash or a lot of cash at very little cost. But figuring out how to do that with little cash is not easy and the people who are able to solve that part are going to be the winners of the future.
In the Bangladesh context, I would say right now sentiments are super high across the board, and that's true for me as well. We have been proven now that the youth of this generation are smart. They are willing to take action to do the right thing, the kind of environment where startups generally want to thrive, where the next generation of employees who are going to join Jomee Jomaa are going to come with a sense of responsibility towards the country. They want to be able to innovate, solve things, and build things that are going to help a lot of people. And a startup, at the end of the day, is a combination of people coming together to work towards one cause or to solve a problem. I think a lot of things are going to change in the near future. People are being more vocal, people are taking a lot more action, people are generally feeling positive. Patriotism has also been at an all-time high. All things that are good markers for the startup ecosystem.
Lastly, I think these are good metrics for the larger asset management firms or wealth management companies to focus on emerging markets like Bangladesh because now as they see more and more companies or innovations being available in countries like Bangladesh, which are coming at a much cheaper cost for them as opposed to, let's say, more mature markets like US and UK markets. I think with the right steps taken from the government to encourage foreign investments, things in the startup ecosystem can look very positive for us very soon.
Ruhul: You have rightly pointed out that some of the very successful startups came out of the very challenging economic conditions in 2008/09/07, those years. So difficult times are absolutely, as you rightly pointed out, when people are more resource-efficient, and also people who are really capable can really navigate these challenges. At the same time, it's generally difficult for companies to raise money. Even the very good companies are struggling to raise money. What are your thoughts in terms of how do you plan to navigate that challenge at Jomee Jomaa? Do you plan to raise money? If you plan or do not plan to raise money, how are you strategizing to navigate this time?
Alvi: As an early-stage startup, it's a must for us to be always raising money. That is a no-brainer. In terms of strategy, what has really worked for us is we have been able to assemble a capable team. As you were mentioning, because of the fact that we operate at the intersection of a few different industries, we absolutely need to make sure that all of the people who we have assembled to work together have the right knowledge to navigate different problems and different spheres of work, if I can put it that way.
When we present that in front of investors, generally that's the kind of combination they're looking for. From the get-go, I believe that investors can say that our team formation looks like a winning team.
We have people like Ayaz who have more than five years of experience in building technologies like this. We have Tahsin bhai, who's teaching design thinking at a prestigious university like University of Notre Dame before joining Jomee Jomaa. He comes with a wealth of experience in terms of making design better, and if the design of your product, if the user interaction is made simpler and easier, that kind of also makes it a winning product.
Lastly, we are keeping that trend going as we onboard new people to the team. We have Samiha who has recently joined us. She is an ex-founder and also has previous wealth tech experience where she worked in an investment startup. All in all, with the right level of experience and the kind of work that we have previously done and have shown to be successful in, that is a big indicator for investors that they're putting their money in the right place.
In the startup world, you can never say where things will go. But these are the things investors want to see early on: that the team I'm putting my money into, do they have the right precursors to succeed? Do they have the right level of knowledge and skill and also a previously established record of success that gives them the confidence that yes, this is a company I want to bet on? So that's our strategy: just to have the right people in the right places and have the right skill sets that can give investors the confidence to back us.
Ruhul: You studied and worked in the US and now you're trying to build a company in Bangladesh. What are some lessons you learned in terms of launching and running a company in the country?
Alvi: My journey has been unique in a way that I started with management consulting. I worked at Deloitte for a little over three years. During my time at Deloitte, I worked with many different tech companies, from FAANG companies to smaller startups. I was able to see the facets and challenges that companies at different stages face and was able to help these companies navigate and solve those problems.
Then working for a mid-sized later-stage startup company like Butterfly Network, which eventually IPO'd, I've seen how a startup turns itself into a public limited company.
My last company before Jomee Jomaa was StackWell Capital, which I intentionally worked for to make sure I understand how a company is built from scratch. And StackWell Capital is also in the fintech space. They're doing similar wealth tech fractional investing kind of work in the US. That was a very direct and an intentional choice for me to make sure that that experience of working directly with the founder and leading operations like trade operations and product management kind of helps me understand what is required of me as an early-stage founder in the wealth tech space in Bangladesh.
Those experiences and knowledge together help me understand the sort of solutions I need to work, and also what problems that we will encounter in the future. To be able to anticipate them and to be able to prepare for them is something that I'm able to do or I would say I'm able to prepare for them because of the kind of experiences that I've had previously.
Ruhul: In the process of launching and running Jomee Jomaa for over a year, what are some things, ideas, or any strategies or approaches to work that you found helpful as a founder?
Alvi: The biggest lesson for me or something that I found works is to keep things simple. The more simple you can keep it, the easier it is to communicate, the easier it is for your users to get on board and share the vision, and also it's just easier to grow something that is simple versus complicating things.
Initially, doing something complex might look like you're doing something elegant, but honestly, the most elegant things are very simple if you look at it that way.
What has worked for Jomee Jomaa is keeping things as simple as possible. We want to use terms that are simple for users to understand, and we want to have a vision that's very simple to communicate whether we are talking about sharing that vision with our users or institutional investors.
It's as simple as, hey look, investing in land in Bangladesh is a great idea, but it's very difficult for most people to do. We're just making it possible by using technology, eliminating the inefficiencies in the system and making it affordable.
A very simple, direct value proposition like that, I think, has helped us communicate who we are, what we do to all sorts of stakeholders.
Ruhul: That's really powerful. We feel tempted to make things complicated because complexity has a narrative around intelligence and being deliberately simple is not that easy to do. Running a company is really super tricky for the founders in a sense that you need to run the company and at the same time, you need to constantly grow yourself because the growth of the company is usually tied to the growth of the founder; your company will grow as far as you as a founder are capable of. How do you approach running the organization and how do you approach growing yourself as a founder?
Alvi: I feel like I've been hogging the hot seat for too long. So, I'll let Ayaz take this and I'll probably add to what he says.
Ayaz: For me, before I started working with Jomee Jomaa, I only focused on growth as a developer. But now this has allowed me to experience more facets of growth in terms of working with others in the team. It's basically about leadership and those qualities in me I did not have much of an opportunity to grow on when working solely as a developer. Now it's more about motivating others to also get the job done. I would say for me that has been the biggest part, from being solely a developer to someone who can lead other developers and the whole team.
Alvi: Very similar sentiments to what Ayaz just said. When you are not a founder, you're thinking about one particular problem or one facet of your work, but as a founder, you constantly think about the whole company as one entity. You are talking to investors, so you need to grow the company, you're talking to users, plus you are talking to your team to make sure they're motivated and that you are always available to help them solve problems.
Lastly, you also have to be able to make sure that you are taking care of yourself. Because now that you are stretched out thin across so many different things, taking care of your physical health, mental health is important for your effectiveness.
That is something that as a founder I've been able to give a little more importance. I have understood that that's something I need to do to be successful.
All in all, yeah, all sorts of growth in very different ways that I think as a founder we have been able to experience that none of the other earlier career options have allowed us to do.
Ruhul: A couple of books that you've enjoyed recently.
Ayaz: My most recent favorite book would be The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. I am more into psychology and morality types of topics. Another book I've particularly enjoyed is Behave by Robert Sapolsky.
Alvi: I'm more of a business book person. The latest book that I've been reading is called Before You Startup by Pankaj Goyal, an Indian founder who walks through their journey of what are the things that they had to think about and what they have realized after starting their startup that they wish they had thought about before.
I'm currently reading that right now. But my all-time favorite and I think a very moving book for me has been the very popular Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I think these are two books that come to mind.
Ruhul: Suggestions for early-stage founders.
Alvi: I'll just go with the very cliched one. Every single person you ask will tell you to do something that you'll enjoy because the journey is super tough. Unless you're motivated and truly feel about the problem that you're solving, you won't be able to continue it for too long. If you are to focus on one thing, do something that you are passionate about. For which, you are willing to go through hardships and challenges.
Expertise is something that you can develop over time. But it is hard to do the same for your passion. So find a problem that you're super passionate about and want to dedicate your life to, and go for it. That is the most important thing when you're thinking about what problem to solve or what your startup should be about.
Ayaz: When you work on something that you're passionate about it doesn't feel like work. When you're building a company, it involves a lot of work and when you're doing a lot of something, you have to enjoy it. So choose what gives you enjoyment.
Ruhul: It makes perfect sense. If you're not enjoying what you're doing you are likely going to produce something super good. Thank you so much for taking this time. I totally enjoyed the conversation and learned a lot.
Alvi: Thank you for sitting down with us. This was fun.
Ayaz: Thank you. I enjoyed the conversation.
